Program Information

When Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in October 1917, the most important task before them was to stop the war.

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Transcript

Lead: When Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in October 1917, the most important task before them was to stop the war.

Tag: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: World War I went badly for the Russians, to say the least. Continued defeat and incompetence had brought down the Czarist regime and the provisional government that followed it. In their place were Lenin and the Bolsheviks. He knew that, if their regime was to survive, they had to have peace, no matter what it cost.

After an initial temporary armistice, negotiations between the Bolshevik government and Germany began in January 1918 at the small Polish village of Brest-Litovsk. The Germans demanded that Russia surrender Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and a portion of Latvia. In addition, they demanded that the Russian army be completely demobilized and that Russia make reparation payments to cover German costs in maintaining Russian prisoners of war.

Lenin was quite willing to give into those demands but Leon Trotsky, the peace negotiator, and the party organizations in Moscow and Petrograd choked. They thought the German demands were completely out of line. They would soon regret their mistake. On January 24, 1918 the Central Committee voted nine to seven and Lenin lost. Trotsky argued that Germany would not advance if Russia just refused to fight. That turned out to be wishful thinking. On February 18th, Germany did advance and in the process swallowed Belarus and Estonia. When the Russians sought again to negotiate, Germany demanded they give up their entire Baltic holdings and recognize the anti-Communist governments in Finland and the Ukraine. This was a crushing price to be paid for peace, but Lenin warned that to turn down the offer would mean the Bolsheviks would fall and Russia would descend into anarchy.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, 1918 could only be called draconian. To Russia the losses were enormous--26% of its prewar territory, 27% of its cultivated land, 70% of its industrial capacity--but Lenin thought it was worth the price paid, for the Bolsheviks were free to consolidate their grip on Russia.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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